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Mine didn’t look that great either. My mom had never been much of a clean freak, and Dad only believed in cleaning once a year, during the spring. Other than laundry, dishes, and the occasional dust-and-vacuum job (usually all my doing), not much housework got done in the Piper home.
“What time will your parents get here, Jessica?” I asked.
“Mom will be home at five-thirty, and Dad should get here a little after six.” She was waiting for us at the foot of the stairs, ready to run up to her bedroom as soon as we joined her. “Dad started seeing a new patient today, though, so he might be a little late.”
Mr. Gaither was a therapist. More than once, Casey had threatened to ask him if he’d take me as a patient for free. See if he’d help work out my “issues.” Not that I had issues. But Casey said my cynicism was the result of some kind of internal struggle. I said it was just me being intelligent. And Jessica… well, Jessica didn’t say anything. Even though it was only ever discussed teasingly, she always got a little awkward when the subject came up. With all the psychobabble she heard from her dad, she probably did think my constant negativity was part of an internal struggle.
Jessica hated negativity. Hated it so much, in fact, that she wouldn’t even say she hated it. That would have been too negative.
“Hurry, hurry! Are you guys ready or what?”
“Let’s get this party started!” Casey whooped, ru
Jessica giggled like a maniac as she made an effort to catch up with Casey, but I lagged behind, following them up the stairs at a regular walking pace. Once I reached the landing, I could hear my friends laughing and talking in the bedroom at the end of the hall, but I didn’t follow their voices. Something else caught my attention first.
The door to the first bedroom, the one on the left, was wide open. My brain told me to walk right past, but my feet weren’t listening. I stood in the open doorway, willing my eyes to look away. My body just didn’t want to cooperate.
Perfectly made bed with the battered, navy blue comforter. Superhero posters covering every inch of wall. Black light over the headboard. The room was almost exactly the way I’d remembered it, only there were no dirty clothes on the floor. The open closet looked empty, and the Spider-Man calendar, which used to hang over the computer desk, had been taken down. But the room still seemed warm, as if he were still there. As if I were still fourteen.
“Jake, I don’t understand. Who was that girl?”
“No one. Don’t worry about it. She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“But…”
“Shh…. It’s not a big deal.”
“I love you, Jake. Don’t lie to me, okay?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Promise?”
“Of course. Do you really think I’d hurt you, Bi—”
“Bianca! Where the hell did you go?”
Casey’s voice made me jump. Quickly, I stepped out of the bedroom and shut the door, knowing that I couldn’t walk past it every time I needed to pee that night. “Coming!” I managed to keep my voice normal. “God! Be patient for once in your life.”
Then, with a forced smile, I went to watch a movie with my friends.
7
After thinking about it for a while, I decided that there were a lot of benefits to being the Duff.
Benefit one: no point in worrying about your hair or makeup.
Benefit two: no pressure to act cool—you’re not the one being watched.
Benefit three: no boy drama.
I figured out benefit three while we were watching Atonement in Jessica’s bedroom. In the movie, poor Keira Knightley has to go through all of this damn tragedy with James McAvoy, but if she’d been unattractive, he never would have looked at her. She wouldn’t have gotten her heart broken. After all, everybody knows the “it’s better to have loved and lost…” spiel is a load of crap.
The theory applies to a lot of movies, too. Think about it. If Kate Winslet had been the Duff, Leonardo DiCaprio wouldn’t have been after her in Titanic, and that could have saved all of us a lot of tears. If Nicole Kidman had been ugly in Cold Mountain, she wouldn’t have had to worry about Jude Law when he went off to war. The list goes on forever.
I watched my friends go through boy drama all the time. Usually, the relationships ended with them crying (Jessica) or screaming (Casey). I’d only had my heart broken once, but that was more than enough. So really, watching Atonement with my friends made me realize how thankful I should have been to be the Duff. Pretty screwed up, right?
Unfortunately, being the Duff didn’t save me from experiencing family drama.
I got home at around one-thirty the next afternoon. I was still recovering from the sleepover—where no one slept—and I could barely keep my eyes open. The sight of my house in a state of complete devastation woke me right up, though. Broken glass sparkled on the living room floor, the coffee table was upside down, like it’d been kicked over, and—it took me a minute to register this—beer bottles were scattered around the room. For a second I stood frozen in the door, worried that there’d been a burglary. Then I heard Dad’s heavy snoring in his bedroom down the hall, and I knew the truth was worse.
We didn’t live in a coatrack home, so it was perfectly acceptable to keep your shoes on when you walked on the carpet. Today it was pretty much required. Glass, which I figured out had come from several broken picture frames, crunched under my feet as I made my way to the kitchen to get a trash bag—one would be necessary to clean up this chaos.
I felt oddly numb as I moved through the house. I knew I should be freaking out. I mean, Dad had been sober for almost eighteen years, and the beer bottles made it pretty fucking clear that that sobriety was in danger. But I didn’t feel anything. Maybe because I didn’t know how to feel. What could have been bad enough to knock him off that wagon after so long?
I found the answer on the kitchen table, neatly masked by a manila envelope.
“Divorce papers,” I muttered as I examined the contents of the opened package. “What the fuck?” I stared down at my mother’s loopy signature in a twisted state of shock. I mean, yeah, I’d kind of seen the end coming—when your mom vanishes for more than two months, you just get that feeling—but now? Really? She hadn’t even called to warn me! Or Dad. “Damn it,” I whispered, my fingers shaking. Dad hadn’t seen this coming. God, no wonder he was suddenly boozing it up. How could Mom do this to him? To either of us.
Fuck this. Seriously. Fuck her.
I tossed the envelope aside and went to the cabinet where we kept the cleaning supplies, fighting the tears that stung my eyes. I grabbed a garbage bag and headed into the demolished living room.
It hit me all at once, causing a lump to rise in my throat as I reached for one of the empty beer bottles.
Mom wasn’t coming home. Dad was drinking again. And I was literally picking up the pieces. I gathered the largest shards of glass and the empty bottles and tossed them into the bag, trying not to think about my mom. Trying not to think about how she most likely had a perfect tan. Trying not to think of the cute twenty-two-year-old Latino she was probably screwing. Trying not to think about the perfect signature she’d used on those divorce papers.
I was angry at her. So, so angry. How could she do this? How could she just send divorce papers? Without coming home or warning us. Didn’t she know what it would do to Dad? And she hadn’t even thought of me. Let alone called to prepare me for this.